Last year, a show in the middle of the sea of satellite exhibitions, which appeared during the annual NYCXDesign festival in the city. In a specially dressed Brooklyn warehouse, there was a medley of eccentric furniture, textile work, glass objects and visual art of queer talents such as Yolande Milan Batteau, Zander Schlacter and Jeremy Martin. “Design Dysphoria”, which is arranged in an apartment, should create space for Vanguard creative, especially for women, non-binaries, and trans artists who have committed their practice to exceed disciplines and blurred limits to exciting new species.
“We often think of the energy of working with the category in which you are in,” says the artist and Sticky Glass founder Grace Whiteside, who curated the show with the textile artist Liz Collins and the Design Firm Studio S II co-founder Erica Sellers and Jeremy Silberberg. “This enables many different types of artists, works and objects that can coexist in a really exciting and unexpected way in a room what is the essence of the queer design for me.”
“Design dysphoria: Give them the imagination.”
Photo: Chris Coe
“Design Dysphoria” recently returned for a second edition with the title “Give the Fantasy” and this time converted the Chelsea, Manhattan, the gallery of the Gotham cannabis pharmacy into an atmospheric sequence of futuristic vignettes that swivel from sci-fi sets or video games. Each scene, explains seller and Silberberg, “reveals a new atmosphere or a new emotional state.” Velvet curtains, mirrored surfaces and saturated pallets are reminiscent of the mood size of David Lynch's noir secret Blue velvet Or the Clubby cultural classic Fluidwho inspired a wall covering in the cooperation with Collins and Flavor paper, which conjures up a psychedelic backdrop.
“Design dysphoria: Give them the imagination.”
Photo: Chris Coe
“Design dysphoria: Give them the imagination.”
Photo: Chris Coe
Within 23 interdisciplinary artists, many of whom took part in the first iteration. Francheska Alcántara draped brown paper bags such as jewelry over tasting purple pillows, crawling up the walls and reminding of the polar seeds padded furniture in beauty salons and spas in the bronx. A piece of hand -cut glass mushrooms from Deborah Czeresko expect the material to be flowed as a line in order to take into account how queer culture such as natural ecosystems, germs and grows. Dried amaranths sprout back and forth from moderate glass vessels by Studio S II and near huge, wooden shapes of Savannah Knoop Rock, their blood red blows, which curiously gay a velvet bar of a gay bar in the neighborhood of the neighborhood.
“Design dysphoria: Give them the imagination.”
Photo: Chris Coe
The results are urgent, outrageous and pure fun – a spirit that becomes contagious when you go further. The core topic of the game of the show becomes a method and message. The artists were encouraged to play and exceed with accepted functional and aesthetic rules, which led to wonderfully experimental pieces that indulge in their own craziness and ultimately raise their neighbors. “The game is of crucial importance for queer design. It enables us to present and build worlds beyond the restrictions of the dominant culture,” explains Seller and Silberberg. “Understanding and dissecting playing is how we experiment with identity, aesthetics and intimacy.” Simply expressed, there thrives the possibility.
“Design dysphoria: Give them the imagination.”
Photo: Chris Coe
“Design dysphoria: Give them the imagination.”
Photo: Chris Coe
In addition to the gallery walls, the project also includes a product line in a limited edition that was sold exclusively in Gotham after a preview was sold in Gotham in May. The householdware – a pinpoint kit from Collins, a growth glassbtray from sticky glass as well as salt and pepper mills in aluminum and patinated brass from Studio S II – are the subscription energy of the show, but translates into everyday objects. “The textures feel tactile and seductive, the colors refer to and the shapes are a bit strange, sci-fi and glamorous,” continues the seller and silverberg. “There is a sensuality, but also sense of humor.”
That and despite. “The more boundaries and preconceived ideas in which we capture what exist, should be sold and in which space are exhibited,” says Whiteside, “the less progressive and including these environments tend to be.” But checkbox approaches to display do not press the envelope, says Whiteside. “Just because everyone is in a list is not necessarily a show interesting or progressive. How do the work interact with each other? What is the overall count of the environment? How do we push back together? What is important?” The answer in Gotham and hopefully there is a lot of “design dysphoria” shows that are to come.
“Design Dysphoria: Give them the imagination” will be shown in Gotham (146 10th Ave, New York) until August 1st.